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Grand-Am teams embrace Circuit of the Americas – will the fans?

February 28, 2013

As the Circuit of the Americas gets ready to host its first Grand-Am race, all that remains to be seen is if the fans will embrace the venue. Photo by GRAND-AM

Tavo Hellmund was a little-known race promoter when he conceived the road course that would eventually be built in his hometown of Austin, Texas. Hellmund knew that the key to getting the track built, and earning his project the global attention it would need to get off the ground, would be its association with global motorsports events, like Formula 1 and Moto GP.

But Hellmund was clear early on about what he wanted Circuit of the Americas to be – a track that would host multiple events which would help keep the course busy year-round. Late last year, COTA hosted that first Formula 1 race, and it was an undeniable success.

This weekend, the track hosts its second race – the Grand-Am of The Americas, Presented by Gainsco and Total. The crowd won’t be what it was for the F1 race last November, and it won’t be headline news around the world, but this is the sort of race COTA must make work for the circuit if it is to thrive.

For Texas-based Grand-Am teams, it’s a dream come true. Park Place Motorsports is an extension of the Dallas-based Park Place chain of dealerships, which includes Porsche, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Lexus, Bentley, Maserati, Lotus, Rolls-Royce, Volvo and Smart. This year the company has jumped into racing feet-first, building the small Horton Autosport team into a well-funded organization fielding three Porsche GT3s at this race, led by the only American Porsche factory driver, Patrick Long.

“This track is now leading the way,” Long says, calling COTA “one of the best tracks in the country. I’m also a big fan of the city of Austin, where this track is a great fit. It’s great to have a draw like the COTA track, an international track, on the outskirts of a place like Austin, which represents the merger of hard core America and the more liberal arts parts of L.A., New York, Miami, and places like that. It’s obviously a great blend, a city with a lot of vibe, younger, more artsy. This concept is more than I could’ve dreamed of.”

Similarly high on COTA is the Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing team, not surprising since Gainsco driver Jon Fogarty put the number 99 Chevrolet Corvette on the pole for Saturday’s race. Gainsco is an insurance company based in Dallas, and company and team owner Bob Stallings stepped up to co-sponsor the race in his home state, and he’s bringing 500 guests, agents and business associates to the race.

“It is kind of a big weekend for us,” Fogarty says. "Gainsco and the team are based in Dallas so this is kind of a home race.”

COTA has three more pro race weekends scheduled before F1 returns November 15-17. Next up is Moto GP, April 19-21, followed by the Australian V-8 Supercars May 17-19, which includes the World Challenge. The American Le Mans Series and World Endurance Championship series are in town September 19-22. The track will also begin promoting musical acts at its outdoor Tower Ampitheater, which supposedly canhold as many as 14,000 people, starting April 5 with a Kenny Chesney concert, with future acts including the Zac Brown Band, Jimmy Buffett, the Dave Matthews Band and Train.

There’s little doubt that Formula 1, Kenny Chesney and Jimmy Buffett will draw crowds. Will the rest of the season’s races? We’ll have a good idea when we see the audience for Grand-Am.